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As the demand for enterprise video technologies increases, organizations are facing more demands on their network capacity and complexity in delivering video applications.

The Cisco
® Enterprise Content Delivery System (ECDS) is a media delivery system that helps organizations easily scale video and media delivery over their existing WAN infrastructure. For both data and video optimization, Cisco ECDS can be deployed with Cisco WAAS, providing a complete WAN optimization solution.

Cisco ECDS helps customers:

• Scale delivery of applications like e-learning, training, corporate communications, live webcasts, and digital signage, among others, for large audiences and remote sites

• Deliver live and video-on-demand media in various formats to multiple endpoints throughout the enterprise network

• Reduce operational costs through integration with media applications and also optimize storage requirements and bandwidth for streaming

• Extend the reach and quality of the media experience through the enterprise while maintaining a predictable WAN network behavior.

Cisco ECDS consists of a distributed system of components, including the Service Engine, the Content Delivery System Manager (CDS Manager), and the Service Router, to effeciently provide live video streaming scalability, video on demand (VoD), content prepositioning, and dynamic caching of video content over the corporate WAN to remote sites.

Cisco ECDS is a versatile media delivery platform with support for Adobe Flash, Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, and the H.264 video compression standard. With support for seamless scalability and resiliency through its service routing capability, Cisco ECDS offers various choices to support a range of sites, from those with fewer than 25 users to large campuses with thousands of users.

Cisco Enterprise Content Delivery System Applications

The Cisco ECDS consists of three main applications.

Service Engine

The Service Engine provides edge content streaming, caching, and download to various endpoint devices such as PCs, Macs, and digital signs, among others. Content streaming support includes live and video on demand (VoD) for Adobe Flash, Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, and H.264 formats. The Service Engine also provides the point of entry into ECDS for ingesting live streams. Through the optional content acquisition subsystem, the platform dynamically fetches content on demand using prefetch and prepositioning options.

Service Router

The Service Router mediates requests from the endpoint clients. It is responsible for choosing the most appropriate service engine based on location and load conditions of individual service engines.

Content Delivery System Manager

The Content Delivery System Manager is a graphical, browser-based application designed to manage the elements of a Cisco ECDS network. It offers a workflow-based approach, automating and centralizing the major system management functions, including configuration, monitoring, troubleshooting, system reporting, and maintenance.

Figure 1 illustrates how the components of ECDS work together.

Figure 1. Using the Cisco Enterprise Content Delivery System to Stream Content over the Corporate WAN

Technical Benefits

• Scales bandwidth-heavy media applications without the need to upgrade the WAN network

• Scales across the enterprise without the need to turn on multicast

• Provides centralized management and system reporting

• Supports various endpoints and formats through a single-vendor solution

• Content prefetch and prepositioning through HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, or Common Internet File System (CIFS)

• Service-routing-based, scalable, hierarchical distribution topology

• Support for Cisco Digital Signs for delivering VoD content

• Support for Cisco Show and Share®

• Compatible with other Cisco video solutions

Detailed Features and Benefits

Table 1 summarizes features and benefits.

Table 1. Cisco ECDS Features and Benefits

Feature

Benefits

Content Ingest into the Cisco Enterprise Content Delivery System

Ingest predefined content

Various digital assets such as long- and short-form video can be acquired from a variety of sources, using different protocols, and placed in local storage. This capability allows the enterprise to put content from various sources into the system and make it available across the enterprise.

Ingest dynamic content

Requests for assets not currently in cache or content storage can be fetched on demand from the content origination source. Dynamic cache requests are sourced from the origin source using HTTP or RTSP for Windows Media, RTSP for QuickTime, and HTTP for Flash.

Enables content streaming to variety of PCs and mobile devices with Flash, Adobe AIR, and Flash Lite clients. RTMPE enables 128-bit encryption without the use of certificates to help secure streamed media and communication.

Progressive content download using HTTP

Makes it possible to provide video on demand using progressive rendering that reduces download time on web-browser-based clients.

The Cisco ECDS Service Router supports several routing methods to best determine which Cisco Service Engine should be used to serve content based on dynamic load conditions.

Location independence

Allows serving any content to any place by factoring in the location of the requesting client to determine the choice of Cisco Service Engine.

System resiliency

Provides system resiliency against network and device failures by dynamically detecting and routing requests to alternative ECDS Service Engines.

Cisco CDS Manager as a Single Point of Management

Management as a single system

Management is simple, with a single, easy-to-use GUI to configure, monitor, and troubleshoot the Cisco ECDS applications throughout the entire system. Management simplicity contributes to reduction in operational costs. The Cisco Content Delivery System Manager provides an interface to third-party applications through APIs.

The ECDS solution is currently available in an appliance form factor called the Cisco Media Delivery Engine (MDE) in the following models:

• Cisco Media Delivery Engine 50 WVB

• Cisco Media Delivery Engine 1100

• Cisco Media Delivery Engine 3100

Solution Requirements

At a minimum, a Cisco ECDS deployment requires the following:

• Service Engine

• Content Delivery System Manager

• Service Router

The MDEs may be used to run any of the above three main applications. Please note that Content Acquisition is an additional license that is required for using a Service Engine as a Content Acquirer.

Ordering Information

Ordering information for the Media Delivery Engine can be found on the respective data sheet.

Service and Support

Cisco and our partners provide a broad portfolio of smart, personalized services and support that can help you realize the full value of your video investment, and increase business agility and network availability. This portfolio of services drives business transformation through a network-based collaboration platform that enables business to collaborate anywhere, anytime.